Chapter 10

TEN

“ A nd he didn’t say anything else? The entire ride back?”

I popped a calamari in my mouth and shrugged at Kate’s questions following my debrief of the afternoon. After Xavier had dropped me back at the house, he’d offered to take Sofia for a walk to the park before the sun set completely, leaving me to share a meal with Joni and Kate, who happened to be in the neighborhood after a day of scouring estate sales for her shop.

Kate arrived with wine and takeout. Joni chose the music off her phone. And I poured out the intensity of the afternoon to my sisters’ eager faces.

I grabbed another calamari but could only look longingly at the glasses of Sangiovese she and Joni were enjoying next to me on the back deck.

“Not a word,” I said after I swallowed. “Other than to ask about taking Sofia to the park, that is.”

“So, he stands up to Mami for you,” Kate recounted. “Then practically cries when he sees his baby for the first time?—”

“He didn’t cry ,” I said, although there had definitely been a telltale sheen in his eyes. Tears weren’t totally out of the question.

Plus, the room was really dark.

“And then he offers to buy you a mansion, kisses you on the pier?—”

“Don’t forget declaring his undying love for her,” Kate put in while she cut herself a bit of the eggplant parm I’d picked up down the street.

“Right, right. Then he declares his undying freaking love, says you’re anything but over…and gives you the silent treatment?”

Joni shoved a hand through her hair, which she had apparently tipped blond in after I’d left for work. If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in my drama, I’d have been annoyed my bathroom now reeked of bleach.

“That’s beyond messed up,” she said. “Sounds like a whole lot of fuckboy behavior.”

“Sounds like he’s figuring some shit out.” Kate swirled the wine in her glass and tipped her face up toward the lights strung around the deck, looking like Elizabeth Taylor with her big silk hair scarf, vintage gold earrings, and aggressive cat eye.

I shrugged, wishing with my whole heart I could partake in wine too. “Apparently. Honestly, the whole exchange was kind of weird. By the end, I could tell he wanted to yell at me. Like, really let me have it. Then take me somewhere and, well, let me have it , if you know what I mean. Before, that’s exactly what he would have done.”

“Yell and ravish,” Kate translated. “Let’s not pretend you didn’t like it when the not-so-gentle giant lost his shit a little, Frankie. Especially the ravishing part. Especially in the alley behind his restaurant or two.”

“I didn’t know you had an exhibitionist streak,” Joni said with a grin. “Damn, my sis is a closeted freak!”

“I never should have told you that,” I informed Kate dryly.

She just shrugged. “My point stands. After all, you did let this man knock you up again .”

I threw a calamari ring at her, which she dodged, laughing. Joni watched us with glee, happy for once not to be the naughty one in the family.

“I didn’t like any of it,” I told them, though everyone there, myself included, plainly knew I was lying.

It wasn’t that I liked being yelled at. But Xavier’s passion was another story, especially when he let it out in other ways. I’d never minded his tendency to say exactly what he was thinking. When it came to Sofia and me, he’d always shown his emotions as he felt them, even if they sometimes erupted like a thunderstorm.

It was when he had started bottling them all up that we ran into trouble.

Or when he had taken those repressed frustrations out on me in other ways.

Was his restraint today just more bottled urges? Or was he trying to change something more fundamental about himself?

“It is kind of satisfying to know he was willing to come to your rescue with Mami, though,” Kate said. “I still can’t believe she went to the Post about you.”

“She’s desperate,” said Joni. “I mean, she’d have to be, right? No one would rat out their kids otherwise. Maybe we should help her or something.”

Kate and I both looked at her with varying measures of pity. It was sweet, really, the way she wanted to think the best of our mother. But she was too little to remember much of the bad stuff.

“I just wish he would have stood up to his own family like that for me,” I said.

“Well, maybe he’s just getting started,” Kate offered. “Maybe you should go back to London and see what he does now.”

“Ha. Not on your life!” I reached for a tentacular calamari, only to have Joni steal it from my reach. “Hey, I wanted that. You’re supposed to give pregnant ladies everything they like, you know.”

“Gimps too,” Joni said, gesturing toward her scarred knee, which was propped up on the only empty chair at the table, marring her otherwise perfectly svelte dancer’s legs encased in cutoff shorts.

“I don’t think that counts when you’re six weeks post-surgery, babe,” Kate informed her. “Speaking of, what’s the prognosis from PT? When can we expect you back on the stage?”

An unfamiliar darkness shadowed my baby sister’s face as she stuffed another calamari in her mouth and chased it with the remainder of her wine.

Kate and I just waited her out.

Eventually, Joni mumbled something under her breath.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Kate asked. “Did you forget how to speak?”

“I said I tried to do a cabriole,” Joni enunciated with flushed cheeks. “And then I fell. Hard.”

Kate and I glanced quizzically at each other, then back at her.

Joni just huffed.

“A cabriole,” she repeated as if we should know exactly what that meant. “It’s a dance move. A really hard one. Where you jump and hold your top leg at a forty-five or ninety-degree angle, and then beat the bottom leg to it without losing that angle.” She sighed. “It used to be only men could handle it. I was the only one in the Chicago cast who could do it at all, male or female.”

“So, it made you a hotshot,” Kate said with better comprehension.

“It got me hired,” Joni corrected her. “The director told me point-blank that’s why he chose me to understudy over more experienced dancers.”

I nodded appreciatively. “That’s awesome, Jo. Badass, really. Sounds like that PT is really paying off quickly.”

“I said I tried it,” she muttered. “And I fell. Like a sack of bricks.” She leaned over onto the table and buried her face in her hands. “I’m finished. I can barely do a pas de bourree without feeling like my knee is twisting off. But my Equity benefits ran out, so PT is done. I’m over. Finished.”

Another glance at Kate told me she didn’t know what “pas de bourree” meant any more than I did, but it was clearly something that upset Joni.

“I’m sure it’s not that bad,” I said as I rubbed her back, lying the way only family can. “You’re young, Jo. Your body is going to bounce back. It’s only been, what, three months since the accident?”

“Yeah, maybe just take a little more time on your own,” Kate chimed in. “Hey, why don’t you visit Marie in Paris? We could probably scrape up a ticket for you.”

Joni just sat back up and made a face. “And sit around in her tiny apartment while she cracks eggs and whines about her boss all day? No, thank you.”

“That’s right, I forgot she had a thing for one of the Lyons brothers,” Kate said. “What’s his name again?”

“Daniel,” Joni said with relish. “And I only know that because Mimi used to write Mrs. Daniel Lyons all over her recipe notebook like she was freaking twelve. How pathetic is that?”

“So she still just likes the one?” Kate asked. “I thought there were two hot brothers running the Lyons family now.”

Joni and I both looked at her in surprise.

“And how would you know that, Katie?” I asked.

She shrugged. “One of them has a stylist. She likes my shop. And she gossips.”

That tracked. Kate’s shop was small, but she’d grown a national following with influential stylists all over the place— to the point where she was considering getting into that line of work herself.

“Anyway, yeah, there are two,” she said. “Look.”

Joni and I both leaned over as Kate pulled up a picture on her phone. Two extremely handsome men looked directly into the camera outside something that appeared to be a benefit, maybe, or a very fancy award ceremony. Despite the fact that they were brothers, the resemblance between them wasn’t particularly strong, and their personality differences were even clearer. One was probably my age, with dusty blond hair, blue eyes, and a bright smile. The other was older, dressed in a somber gray suit and wearing glasses. His brown hair and gray eyes were the personification of a storm cloud, and his mouth bit back a perennial scowl.

I had a feeling he and Xavier would get along very well.

“That’s the one Marie is obsessed with,” Joni said, pointing to the blond one.

Kate made a face. “Ew, he looks like Ryan Seacrest.”

I giggled. “Oh my God, he does.” It was the last type I would have expected Marie to have. She almost never wore anything but black—a lot like the stormy brother, actually.

“He’s better than the other one. He’s cute, but he looks like such a square,” Joni said. “Like, get contacts, Grandpa.”

“I doubt Lucas Lyons cares much about fashion,” Kate said. “He’s too busy running the second largest media conglomerate in the world to care. Anyway, it’s the younger one whose stylist I’ve met. Party boy, that one.”

“You can tell,” I said as I handed Kate back her phone. “He looks better groomed than Nonna. I had no idea Marie liked pretty boys.”

“She likes this pretty boy,” Joni said. “Has ever since she started working for their family, remember?”

Kate and I murmured our agreement. It was a while ago, but I did remember Marie’s consistently dazed expressions when she got her first after-school job as a kitchen assistant at the massive estate. “Can you imagine crushing on someone for five whole years and never making a move?” Joni wondered.

I actually could. In fact, I knew exactly what it was like to pine for someone you couldn’t have for five whole years. And this boy was eons out of my mousy wallflower of a sister’s league.

“Well, in that case, it’s better she went to Paris,” Kate said. “Maybe she’ll pick up some lovers and some style while she’s there.”

Joni snorted. “No kidding. Ditch the nun getups. God knows she never wanted my help in the clothing department.”

“That’s because she doesn’t want tips in her G-string, Jo,” Kate said, laughing when Joni dipped her fingers in her wine and flicked them at Kate in response.

“All the more reason for you to go to Paris now and help her out,” I joked, but before Joni could reply, we were all interrupted by a knock at the front door.

I excused myself, walked through the house, and found the downstairs tenant waiting outside.

“Hey, Pete, come on in,” I said, opening the door for him.

Pete was a forty-something bachelor who worked as a gaming designer. He was quiet, preferred his computer to any kind of sex life, and had lived downstairs without a peep for the past two years. In other words, he was the perfect tenant.

“Thanks,” he said, shoving a hand into his jeans. “I, uh, won’t take up too much of your time.”

“No worries,” I said, guiding him to the back to join us. “Want a glass of wine? My sisters are here.”

“No, I’m good. Got a cold one chilling in the fridge downstairs. Oh, hi ladies.”

Kate and Joni both waved disinterestedly when they caught sight of our guest.

“Everything all right?” I asked. “Is the furnace acting up again? I can have Matthew send someone.”

“No, no, everything’s fine,” he said kind of nervously while he adjusted his baseball cap over his thinning hair. “I just wanted to come tell you in person that I’m moving out when the lease is up next month. I, uh, met someone last year, and, well, we’ve decided to move out to New Jersey. She has a house in Paterson. Bigger space and all.”

I fought not to drop my jaw. So much for having a better relationship with computers than people. When had Pete had time to date?

Probably when I was gallivanting all over England.

“Oh,” I said. “Well, um, that’s great. I’ll let Matthew know.”

“Do you have to?” Kate asked. “The house is yours now, isn’t it?”

I shot her a look. “It will be, but?—”

“That’s great,” Pete interrupted. “Congratulations. And thanks, yeah. Jen, she, uh, wanted me to come out sooner, but I told her I couldn’t break the lease, you know. Couldn’t leave you hanging like that…right?”

Ah, so that’s what he was after.

His cheeks were ruddy, and despite the fact that I was definitely going to miss the extra income from the mother-in-law, I didn’t want to be a jerk and stand in the way of love.

“Hey,” I said, setting a hand on his shoulder. “It’s really not a big deal. You can leave whenever you want. Just let me know when so I can start looking for a new tenant, all right?”

His wan face brightened. “Really? In that case, I’ll probably be out this weekend. I, uh, already kind of started moving my stuff over there.”

“Aw, Pete, you old softie,” Joni said. “You got it bad, don’t you?”

Pete, a man I’d never seen exhibit much in the way of emotion, blushed from head to toe. “When you know, you know, right?” he said. “Anyway, thanks again, Frankie. Been a pleasure renting from you guys.”

“You too, Pete. I’ll talk to Matthew about your deposit and everything.”

He left, and then I resumed my seat with my sisters while they continued to gossip about our siblings and other bits and pieces of drama in their lives. I, however, was already preoccupied.

With Pete moving out, I was losing my tenant, yes, but also the last remnant of life with my brother. I had originally planned to put that money toward payments to buy the house properly from Matthew and Nina. Now I’d have to find a new tenant, which sounded horrible, especially given the fact that in a matter of months, I’d be right back on the landing again in order to give the other bedroom to the baby-to-be.

I could ask Xavier for money to cover the cost of keeping the basement to myself, but after today’s events, I already knew that would come with more strings than I was willing to deal with. Kissing strings. Family strings.

In a single day, more questions were coming up than I had answers to, and I didn’t like that feeling. Not one bit.